BLOG
POSTED BY MATTHEWLAVIN@EARTHLINK.NET ON 20 APR 2019 / 0 COMMENT
3 REASONS WHY YOU SHOULD HIRE A PROFESSIONAL LICENSED DRONE PILOT
3 Reasons Why You Should Hire a Professional Licensed Drone Pilot
Drones have become increasingly popular In recent years and many people use them both recreationally and commercially. There is a great opportunity for drones to be used in many different commercial markets. However, it’s vital that when businesses are looking for drone services, they hire a professional, licensed pilot. Anyone flying a drone for commercial purposes must be licensed by the FAA. Licensed pilots must also focus on aerial coordination which doesn’t always happen. This article explains all the benefits of why you should be hiring licensed pilots for commercial purposes and the importance of complying with aerial coordination.
1. Knowledge and Skill
To get a drone license, pilots are required to pass the Part 107 knowledge test. This is a challenging test that covers a wide range of topics. As you look to hire a professional pilot, this knowledge will go a long way resolving any issues that may arise, and you can work together with the drone pilot to be aware of legal and operational restrictions.
Along with this test, pilots will have knowledge of drone laws. Federal and state regulations are constantly changing, so it’s important that pilots stay up to date on any changes to the rules. While drones have been on the market for quite a few years now, they are still fairly new and government officials are still learning the best way to regulate them.
Aerography, an aerial company local to the San Franciso Bay Area concurs: “Only operators that work frequently with commercial, regional and local authorities really ‘keep u’” on all the changing information required for successful commercial project execution”.
This website has guides for purchasing a beginner drone and becoming licensed.
2. Quality Production & Products
While there’s no guarantee, it can be safe to assume that you’ll be receiving a better quality of service from a licensed pilot that an unlicensed pilot. Having extensive experience at aerial coordination, shot choreography and knowledge of the shooting area makes all the difference when assuring your production. This information, along with a drone team’s excellent camera & aerial equipment recommendations, add quality & polish to any project.
Dronethusiast has a great list of drones with the best cameras.
“High-end commercial productions require in-depth experienced aerial coordination.” Drone professionals at Aerography say, “We employ aerial coordinators who liaison with government offices, the FAA & local film commissions to fly in some of the most complicated air spaces in the country including airport property, the Bay and congested downtown areas.”
When researching a drone pilot, be sure they are competent in scouting the local area where you are shooting, are experienced in aerial coordination and know both the timeline and parameters of your project when estimating. You will want someone who can deliver the quality you need both in production and in the products they use.
3. Increased Safety
Safety is a top priority of any licensed drone operator, just like it probably is for you and your business. As mentioned, drone professionals spend hours learning the FAA rules and regulations to make their business compliant and safe. During this process, they learn about the many effects that weather, temperature and other factors can play into their flights. Flying with a professional drone team is much different than a child flying a kid-friendly drone – it’s important that a pilot is knowledgeable and experienced with all safety regulations.
Along with this, since licensed pilots are operating commercially, they will want to protect themselves, their business, and anyone else who might be around the operation. That’s why all professional drone pilots carry around $1MIL in liability insurance. You should always ask for a Certificate of Insurance for any project. It’s not required for a professional drone pilot to have insurance, but a responsible drone pilot will. This is something to consider when looking for pilots to hire.
“It’s not just about finding someone with the correct license and insurance either,” says Matthew Lavin principal pilot at Aerography, “while your 16-year-old can get a driver’s license and pay for insurance that certainly doesn’t put them in a class with professional NASCAR drivers – experience on set, or particular flight environment, years of navigating safety issues and proper credentials is the recipe for hiring the right drone team.”
With drones becoming more popular by the day, many companies are seeing an opportunity for drones to be used to benefit their business. Drones can be used across many different industries and have a wide range of capabilities. If you’re considering hiring a drone pilot, it’s vital to hire someone who is licensed, insured, has the right products and has deep knowledge of aerial coordination to get the best results for your project.
POSTED BY MATTHEWLAVIN@EARTHLINK.NET ON 15 NOV 2017 / 0 COMMENT
RAIDER NATION MOVES TO LAS VEGAS BY DRONE
We worked the live broadcast LAS VEGAS RAIDERS ground breaking ceremony for Hartman Studios on location- see the amazing results below.
CLICK HERE: Raiders Ground Breaking Cremony
This complex job required live event broadcast, 0 grid airspace coordination with KLAS and the FAA (shout out toScott French at the tower) and night operations too. Coordination and execution were paramount-thanks to all the LOCAL Union Crew that made our shoot not just possible but exceptional.
POSTED BY MATTHEWLAVIN@EARTHLINK.NET ON 14 APR 2016 / 0 COMMENT
AEROGRAPHY IS NOW A MEMBER OF ICG, LOCAL 600!
Membership in the International Cinematographers Guild Means that Aerography:
- Works with the finest camera professionals in the world
- Works with the top talent of the film and TV industries
- Works on the most prominent and respected productions
We are honored to be in such prestigious company and we thank our sponsors .
Aerography provides professional quality, highly creative, totally compliant aerial cinematography crews for TV/Media/Motion Picture and more.
We are proud to be recognized for our contributions to the industry and to be a part of Local 600.
If you need a Union Aerial Cinematography Crew in the Bay Area (or Beyond!) don’t hesitate to call!
Guess this means we get to go to the cool ICG NAB Booth party but that’s another post…..
POSTED BY MATTHEWLAVIN@EARTHLINK.NET ON 29 MAR 2016 / 0 COMMENT
SAN FRANCISCO GIANTS FAN EXPERIENCE GOES AERIAL USING DRONE TECHNOLOGY
CASE STUDY: FAN EXPERIENCE GOES AERIAL USING DRONE AND TERADEK TECHNOLOGY
By SVG Staff
Tuesday, January 5, 2016 – 1:36 pm
For UAV pilot Matthew Lavin, improving the fan experience during a major sporting event is no easy task. As owner of the live aerial production company Aerography, Lavin knew that integrating his drone technology with sports-video broadcasting could create a fresh, exciting point of view for sports fans worldwide.
With this goal in mind, he partnered with the San Francisco Giants back in 2013 in an attempt to test out this aerial approach during a live event. However, one of the biggest challenges that he faced involved getting an uninterrupted, high-quality feed from a drone 300 feet in the air while retaining a broadcast compatible signal to weave into the A/V workflow.
“It was essential to get a long distance, latency-free HD feed with a lightweight platform like a drone. But we were kind of at a loss because the technology had to be there,” says Lavin. “At the time, I was searching for new trendsetters that were starting to bring this technology to the market or else this project wasn’t going to work out.”
The Drone Workflow
At the end of his search, Lavin decided to use Teradek’s Bolt Pro 2000 as his drone’s wireless transmitter, mostly because of the Bolt’s uncompressed, zero-delay signal with 4:2:2 color sampling. Having a range up to 2,000 feet, Bolt also includes easy color management that allows any camera color profile to be brought back to a REC 709 color space or customized to match. To meet broadcast standards, Lavin would use Bolt’s in-line standards converter to ingest up to 1080p60 via SDI and output the ideal frame rate and resolution for his feed.
“Teradek was one of the only companies that could deliver the quality that the Giants needed,” remarks Lavin. “With everything that was going on, we were still able to get the feed that we needed from the Bolt and, in turn, use their Cube to get that broadcast quality that we needed.”
By easily merging with the robust infrastructure already in place at AT&T Park, Lavin and the rest of his Aerography team could utilize the Teradek Cube encoder and decoder to distribute the SDI video signal from the Bolt receiver through IP. With IP, he could pass his signal across a variety of ports and mediums, making it extremely easy to distribute the video signal.
Since FAA regulations started to get tight around this time, Lavin realized that he needed to position the drone further away, putting him outside of the stadium’s network range. Fortunately, Aerography used Teradek Bond II for its cellular bonding, which let him send high-definition video through multiple cellular signals to ensure ample bandwidth and reliability.
From here, the video is then routed through Core, Teradek’s cloud management system. With this last piece of the puzzle, Lavin could just drag and drop the signal back to the Cube decoder so it can be mixed with the main switch.
“Being able to stream and broadcast an HD feed wirelessly from a drone with the Teradek workflow is pretty amazing,” he says. “For this market, the drone is unique. This perspective and the technology involved fascinate people and the fans love it. We get to give them this richer, more intimate experience with their team and it’s a great feeling being able to provide that.”
Challenging Innovation
By the beginning of 2014, the FAA started to hit hard and enforce legitimate flight restrictions prohibiting drones, airplanes, and even helicopters from flying over any MLB, NASCAR, NFL, or college football stadium. With these new boundaries in place, Lavin’s aerial experience for the San Francisco Giants’ fans is at a stalemate, even after proving the detailed workflow.
To this day, there is no surefire way to gain permission from the FAA to provide this service for sports organizations that want it. According to Lavin, the lack of regulations and the reluctance to use new technology has crippled live aerial HD broadcast.
“As broadcasters, we’re trying to bring this immersive experience into the home and it has the potential of being even better than seeing it live,” says Lavin. “Unfortunately, you get a lot of pushback when you’re trying to innovate and
you’re going to have to swim upstream for a while. The hurdles right now are bureaucratic, but once that gets cleared away people will really start to see what this technology can bring to the table.”
POSTED BY MATTHEWLAVIN@EARTHLINK.NET ON 06 FEB 2016 / 0 COMMENT
GIANT DAISY BLOOMS ON CARMEL BEACH, CA
We had a great day shooting a commercial with House of 8 Media and Jeff Clark from Videobot. Andres Amador Arts created a stunning landscape piece for the commercial. We would like to thank the Federal Aviation Administration and Monterey County Film Commission for giving us permission to fly the first UAVs commercially at Carmel Beach CA under our 333 exemption.
POSTED BY MATTHEWLAVIN@EARTHLINK.NET ON 14 JAN 2016 / 0 COMMENT
DRONE CAPTURES LIVE ANGEL HOVERING ST. BARTHS
Our KX8 heavy lift drone caught amazing beautiful images of Victoria’s Secret Angel Candice Swanepoel while hovering during our live shoot in St. Barths with Hamish Hamilton of Dunn & Dusted. See our HD live capture system from Teradek at work onset for Victoria’s Secret Swim Special 2016 in St. Barths collaborating with Firefly Media Group. These bathing beauties are spectacular from every perspective just like the locations in St. Barths but that’s another post…
Our kit standing by waiting to shoot Behati at Shell Beach
Angel,Candice Swanepole poses for our heavy lift octocopter.
POSTED BY MATTHEWLAVIN@EARTHLINK.NET ON 27 NOV 2015 / 0 COMMENT
DRONE SNEEK PEEK NEWEST CHEVY MALIBU
We had an extraordinary day shooting for Chevrolet with an amazing crew from The Sweet Shop. We were first up with a beautiful sunrise in Bodega Bay, CA. The Pursuit Vehicle and Russian Arm was right at home next to our UAV.
Dawn patrol with our hexacopter.
Pre flight check.
Admiring the Pursuit vehicle, but can it fly?
POSTED BY MATTHEWLAVIN@EARTHLINK.NET ON 24 NOV 2015 / 0 COMMENT
***FAA 333 EXEMPTION***MPTOM***APPROVED***
We are proud to announce our FAA 333 Exemption for Motion Picture, Television and Commercial production. In addition, we are approved for a very broad base Data collection. Our custom built rotorcraft was given special permission to fly within closed set motion pictures.
POSTED BY MATTHEWLAVIN@EARTHLINK.NET ON 06 OCT 2015 / 0 COMMENT
IMAGINATION IN 4K – AERIAL STOP MOTION ANIMATION
The collaboration between PermaGrin Films and Rind-Raja Picture Company is pushing the limits of creative story telling. AeroGraphy UAVs is proud to provide the aerial perspective.
As children, we viewed the world through the lenses of our imaginations. The carpet became lava, the shadows formed monsters, the family minivan was a spaceship. But the older we got, the more reality set in, and soon we forgot the magic our minds could create. We invite you to step back into your childhood and take a look through the lens once again. PermaGrin Films presents “Imagination”
Thousands of hours were put in to completing this project. Watch the Behind The Scenes to see all the artists at work.
POSTED BY MATTHEWLAVIN@EARTHLINK.NET ON 24 SEP 2015 / 0 COMMENT
SANTA CRUZ ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
The AeroGraphy aerial team was excited to collaborate with local creative agency, Design by Cosmic, to provide all the aerial perspectives for the new Choose Santa Cruz, website.
We are proud to be apart of this Innovative tech forward community. Our strategic partnerships with local businesses and education initiatives with the UC system is providing a stepping stone for future growth in the UAV industry.
